Here is our story for you to be more familiar with our family. It might help you not to give in and hope for better

It was the first pregnancy without toxicosis and other problems. The only thing bothered me was the sniffle which cured with salty water. But during the last month of my pregnancy I had angina. Moreover, twice there was violation of maternal-placental blood flow which was restored by plant preparations. Because of oligohydramnios I was placed in the hospital to be observed by the doctors and two weeks later it was decided to provoke contractions (at the end of week 39).

From the very beginning of the contractions there were problems with the kid’s heart beating. It took a long time and my daughter suffocated because of the cord entanglement. The doctors still fail to explain why they did not do C-section. The girl was born with no heart beating and breathing. According to Apgar scale there was 0. The injection of adrenaline resuscitated the heart. Artificial pulmonary ventilation (APV) helped her to breathe. She was linked to APV for two days but had convulsions. On the third day she managed to breathe herself without APV. But she still looked like a big edema.

On the 5th day we were placed in the Centre of Pediatrics (Moscow). During 1 month we cured brain edema and pneumonia there in the centre and in Children’s City Clinical Hospital #13 named after Filatov N.F. Needless to say, what we went through and how many drugs we took.

When we came home we tried to get over and get closer to our little girl in warm and loving atmosphere. We still were taking some of the prescribed drugs. We did think we had overcome the worst….We were mistaken, unfortunately.

Soon, it discovered that my mother was suffering from the pancreatic cancer (stage IV cancer). The last 2 months of her life she spent together with us. She used to say that Kate was an angel because when she was holding her she did not feel any pain. Evidently, at those moments she simply forgot her problems and pains. Or…maybe it was true and all little kids are angels and in a greater degree the kids with special needs.

When Kate was 3 months old, we started consulting a lot of doctors in Moscow as we noticed that her physical development stopped and we were afraid that the birth injury might influence on her mentality as well. The doctors tried to calm us down and rejected the possibility of cerebral palsy prescribing different schemes of treatment that were actually useless for us.

At the age of 6 months we made EEG and MRI for Kate which revealed the brutal truth – our daughter had an extensive brain injury. So the neurologists’ diagnosis was rather unpromising: organic defeat of the central nervous system (CNS), spastic tetraparesis, microcephaly, symptomatic epilepsy, slowing of psychomotor development. Again it was prescribed a lot of medicines and was recommended to be registed as a disabled person due to neurological disease.

Since that moment we have been looking for the best way of rehabilitation for our daughter which we are trying to find without our doctors’ help.

Lily Demidova

1. Medical documents

2. Places of treatment

On website Deti-Ageli we found a lot of information (note: in Russian) about the methods of rehabilitation and chose Vojta therapy and Glenn Doman’s method for our daughter.

Here is the information about the trustworthy people who we worked with and can recommend to other parents.

2.1 Vojta-therapy in Moscow (1st course)

We started this therapy when Kate was 9 months old. We wish we had started earlier. Now we would like to recommend those parents who had problems with childbirth not to wait for doctors’ conclusions but to start Vojta therapy or Glenn Doman’s method as soon as possible. In fact, even if your child is not ill he will benefit from these exercises later on. Sorry for lyrical digression.

So, we had exercises with Kovaleva Maria Yurievna – a nice woman and an expert. Due to these exercises Kate started to rise higher on her arms, keep balance, and keep her head straight up lying on her belly. During these classes Kate was crying so loudly that we started doubting their effectiveness (now we realize that it was only our nervousness and we had to simply wait for a while, and Kate might have got used to them and benefited,…but….). In addition to Vojta therapy, Maria recommended us to deal with Kate on the gym ball:

Having collected a lot of information from the Internet and those parents who practice Vojta therapy we decided to get it in Novozibkov town in Bryansky region (Russia). At the same time we found Sergey Kalinin’s website who is an official translator of Glenn Doman’s books into Russian, bought the book “What To Do About Your Brain-Injured Child”, and tried to apply practically his recommendations: Katya began to spend most of time on her belly, we made an inclined floor according to Doman’s recommendations and started to crawl on it.

2.2 The program of neuro-rehabilitation by Bozhena Beinar Slavov

We managed to register in Novozibkov only in for Autumn 2011. As there was much time left we started to find out the prices for rehabilitation in Glenn Doman’s Institutes and realized we could not afford that. But we managed to find some alternatives in US – Family Hope Center and NACD. But we could not afford their programs either. Then, in the Internet we learnt about Bozhena, and when on www.detiangeli.ru we found out that she was coming to Moscow we registered and listened to her lectures after which she assessed our daughter according to Doman’s profile.

Kate was 12 months old and taking into consideration our weak and strong points she recommended a home program for us. Thus, we started to do patternings (copying), reflex masks and follow a special diet. We are grateful to Bozhena as we learnt a lot at her lectures and she involved us in so-to-say “Doman’s world”- the world where our family is living now.

2.3. Vojta-therapy in Novozibkov, Bryansky region

When autumn came we went to Novozibkov to Bulich Natalia Mikhailovna to do Vojta therapy. Since that time we have had (with breaks) four two-week courses. In addition to Vojta therapy Natalia Mikhailovna uses cranio-sacral and Bobat therapies. Along with Vojta we had classes with a speech therapist Inna. As a result of all above stated that Kate started to turn from her back to her tummy and her motor functions of the arms became much better. We really liked to be with all those specialists in that small town Novozibkov but having seen little progress Natalia Mikhailovna advised to try other methods of rehabilitation. One of the ideas was to go to China. We were really sorry to leave Natalia Mikhailovna. She is a very kind person. We wish her all the best.

2.4. Vojta-therapy in Moscow (2nd course)

We did not go to China but came back to Maria Yurievna because we really believe in that method. After 2 weeks of exercises in March 2011, Kate started to carry the weight to her forearm lying on the tummy.

As soon as we had a chance we immediately went to Zigen (Germany) – the original source of Vojta therapy. Now we recommend all parents to go there at once if they can really afford that. Only certified specialists work there, some of them were taught by Vatslav Vojta – the founder of Vojta therapy.

So, we were registered for the course. But as we had much time left we could not afford doing nothing and decided to go to Sochi (Russia) to special session organized by Dobezhins’ school. At the same time we were listed for the lectures in Glenn Doman’s Institutes (Philadelphia, US).

2.5. Igor Charkovsky

And here a few words about our classes with Igor Borisivich who is regularly invited by The Dobezhins to these sessions to Sochi (Russia). We spent 10 days with him doing exercises in the swimming pool. The classes lasted from one to three hours. His method is really unique (he even assists in childbirth in water) and he has been doing that for 50 years. Charkovsky placed some devices in the swimming pool with the help of which kids managed to spend hours jumping in water. Moreover, he dipped Kate under water where he twisted her and did some baby-yoga. When Kate dived she had to breathe deeply and hold her breath which literally made her fall asleep on the move afterwards. It was much easier to do exercises in water as Kate was not so rigid as she was in common life. So, what was the result? Muscle tone lessened and Kate was cutting teeth . That’s not much but that’s a result.

2.6. Voita-therapy in Zigen, Germany

We went to Germany from Sochi. We had classes with the Deputy Manager of Vojta therapy Department at Red Cross Hospital – Frau Westerfeld. Did we like the classes? For sure!!! This lady kindly wanted to help us. After those exercise Kate started to crawl but only with the help of her arms, and that was a great achievement.

2.7. Glenn Doman’s method of rehabilitation

When we started the program developed by Bozhena it was evident that we had to go to The States for the help of those specialists. We just wanted to avoid making mistakes.

Our site is partly devoted to our trips to the States, our program, our problems and achievements.

After the first trip to the US we had to decide whether to go to Zigen and do Vojta therapy or to follow Doman’s program. On the one hand after Vojta therapy Kate started to crawl, could lift weight to her forearms and kept balance, on the other hand, Doman offered a complex approach to treat kids with brain injury (he pays an equal attention to the physical, physiological and intellectual development). We had some doubts and were very afraid that we might make a wrong decision, but finally chose Doman’s program. So since July 2011 we have been following the program of The Institutes.